My Summer Vacation, Stitching and Mr. Policeman

Ha! What summer vacation? Mom's don't get summer vacations, right? The last week has been another busy one! I have to learn not to raise my hand and volunteer, but I'll get to that in a moment.

Even though the week has been absolutely nuts, I have managed to get some stitching done. It's back to Shores and Block 5:

To tell you the you the truth I'm amazed that I've gotten this far during the week. I love this block as much as I did Block 3.

Most of my week has been taken up with kid things. DD is in a Summer Theater production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. As the three high schools here don't have all the costumes in their wardrobes, they need a lot of things made. I, being in a great frame of mind one day (or maybe out of my mind would be a better way to describe it), raised my hand and volunteered to sew some of these things! UGH! What was I thinking? I vowed to never volunteer in any mega way after I ran the school auction for a couple years (a full time job) and was Treasurer of the PTO at the same time. That kind of volunteering can swear you off it the rest of your life! I like being involved when I can, but sometimes I get myself in over my head. Last week it was cutting out and sewing collars and cuffs for the Egyptian costumes. This week, who knows?

In addition to the sewing, I also have had to shop with DD for parts to costumes. She needs a go-go dress and contrasting tights, flat skimmer shoes or go-go boots (HA! - should have kept mine), a blue work uniform shirt (Salvation Army was a destination), a black blanket, an Egyptian Wig. She also got the part of the dancing Sun, so I don't even know what is involved with this. Of course, shopping with this 'tween girl is a nightmare - we came home with much more than we intended. It was fun, but exhausting. One of the things, the black blanket, was difficult to find.

While we were in Marshalls, DD spied this cabinet and said that it looked like something I would like! Well, sure enough it was and for the great price of $9.99. I love the color blue but it won't work in the room I want to put it in, so it's another thing for the painting list. I mentioned to my DH that his daughter sure knew how to shop. His comment? "I wonder where she inherited that trait?" LOL

Many trips were made to Joanne's too and I picked up another pair of scissors for my frog (mom has to buy something for herself, right? Okay, I know I bought the cabinet, but.......)

They're just a multi-colored pair of DMC scissors - nothing fancy, but I liked them. And they were the unbelieveable price of 94 cents. I bought a couple other things that I needed for the craft room organization and when I came home I thought that the bill seemed off. When I read over the receipt, the scanner had only charged me .94 cents, not the $8.99 on the front of the package. I was doing a happy dance.

Another thing I've been working on (in my little spare time) was more organization in the craft room. This time it was my DMC threads. I thought I was organized before - I kept them in floss bags in drawers, but I found myself buying threads for projects when I already had them. Plus I noticed that some of the threads had changed color. Could it be that my threads were suffocating in the floss bags? Gasping for air (why does the thought of a goldfish in a bowl come to mind here)? Was the plastic changing their colors? I don't know - I don't know if those Floss-A-Way are archival quality. It was pretty much just the grey shades and possibly DMC changed formulas over the years, but I decided to change my method of organization. Terri had mentioned she kept her threads this way, and decided that I'd give it a try:

I'm going to spray the outsides of these little cabinets a different color - probably red. I would have done it this week, but it was humid as all get-out, and plus, I just had a hard time finding time. This has been my project for the past two weeks - I could fly in and work on it a little and then fly back out the door with all the activities. Each drawer holds four different colors of threads. A lot of drawers have two of each color (reckless purchasing). I found the labels on a Cathe's blog, shrank them down at Kinkos and copied them on a piece of unperforated label paper and cut them out. Now I feel so organized! The whole DMC collection is in here plus a few drawers for needles, etc.

Well, that's about it. Oh yeah, I did, in all my running around, and I must admit that I have a lead foot - get my first traffic ticket! AUGHHH! $125.00 and 2 points!!!! What the heck?? I've been driving since Adam and Eve were in the garden (well, I feel that old sometimes), and only have been ticketed once - for a No Turn on Red, which I argued my way out of because the sign was behind a tree. I think that Mr. Policeman was just having a bad day and decided to nail me. The light turned yellow, I saw it, thought I was too close to slow down (I was doing the speed limit here - honest), gunned it, but not fast enough. It turned red and BAMMO!!!, Mr. Policeman did a U-turn and nailed me. He asked me how my driving record was and I said "Perfect". Obviously, he decided not to keep it perfect (stinker!). Maybe he hadn't had his donut fix! DRAT!

Well, on that note, I'll leave you with something pretty. My Endless Summer hydrangeas are finally coming up. They're not at their best color yet, but I'm so happy to see them!!!

I hope everyone has a great week and gets a lot of stitching in. I finally found all my threads (thanks to my organization efforts) for the Plantation Sampler so I can finally join the others stitching this and put in my one day a week commitment tomorrow. Thanks again for such sweet comments and emails. It really makes me smile to see them.